I am a big gay white guy, a self-taught artist and unlikely champion of a medium known more for kitchen table craft than fine art. I have spent more than forty years sewing tiny glass beads, one to the next and as much as one year to create a single piece.
My work has taken me all over the United States and abroad as a lecturer, exhibitor, and teacher, and is included in public and private collections.
My career is informed by my desire to discover and to push boundaries. I have invented techniques that have become important tools for those who share my medium and employ these techniques in ways that alter what people expect from beadwork. Discovery is at the heart of what motivates me. My goal is to find what lies at the edge of my potential and that of this odd medium. To that end, I am always attempting to create a perfect object, and exquisite combination of concept, skill and material. This goal, I will never achieve, but each time I get close, or closer than I have been, I remember who I am and why I have spent such an unreasonable amount of time and resources in pursuit of it.
Publications
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Perceived Value Podcast
Drawing Attention to the Ordinary: David Chatt
In the 80th episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown is in Seattle, WA over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's November of 2023, and Sarah has set up her microphones in David Chatt's guest apartment… -
Make/Time Podcast
David Chatt
Whatever the medium or the finished work, at heart he’s a storyteller. In this episode of Make/Time, he tells Stuart Kestenbaum about how he came to make some of his inimitable art—and why a regular old bedside table encased in beads can move a stranger to tears. -
Penland School Artist Profile
Sculptural Glass Bead Artist David Chatt Creates Order out of Chaos
"I have been able to contribute something to the conversation of what it means to be human by exploring the very edge of one tiny and peculiar thing that humans can do." -
Bellevue Arts Museum
2 Hands, 20 Years, and a Billion Beads
This interview with artist David Chatt comes to us from Bellevue Arts Museum during a retrospective exhibition there. -
Interview Magazine
The Artist David Chatt Embraces The Seductive Power of Tiny Beads
For much of his life, David Chatt has directed his attention to trash. “I’ve saved every wishbone that’s come across my horizon over the last decade,” says the Iowa-born artist, who spent his upbringing relentlessly preserving and cataloguing everyday detritus… -
Seattle Channel
Art Zone Shuffle: David Chatt
Well known for his amazing bead work, David Chatt invites us in to his world of renovating, collecting and his giant swing into architectural glass. Segment created by Kathy Tuohey and Valerie Vozza.
Bibliography
The History of Beads: From 30,000 B.C. to the Present, Second Edition by Lois Sherr Dubin
Cast: Art and Objects Made Using Humanity’s Most Transformational Process by Jen Townsend and Renée Zettle-Sterling
500 Beaded Objects: New Dimensions in Contemporary Beadwork by Carol Wilcox Wells and Terry Krautwurst
Artistry in Fiber, Vol. 2: Sculpture, July 28, 2017 by Anne Lee (Author), E. Ashley Rooney (Author), Adrienne Sloane (Introduction), Lois Russell (Foreword)
Artistry in Fiber, Vol. 3: Wearable Art, September 28, 2017 by Anne Lee (Author), E. Ashley Rooney (Author), Susan Taber Avila (Foreword), Margery Goldberg (Foreword)
Ornament Print Edition Volume 28.3